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The games we've been playing this week.

There were a few moments last weekend, amid the mud and trauma of Glastonbury festival, when I began to wonder why I was there. I was wet, I was dirty, and the very ground I walked upon - well, staggered through - clung to my feet like filthy pizza topping. I had paid for this experience; was I an idiot? (And no, let's not answer that question.)

Later in the week, after returning to civilization, I booted up Super Meat Boy for the first time in a while, and I realised that the game elicits similar emotion. For the past few months I've been stuck on the last Light World confrontation with Dr Fetus, failing time and again as my little blob of gristle plummets to his death, or else runs headfirst into a saw blade. I know it's a case of just practicing and learning how to handle each section, but the whole thing feels so arduous - the reward for progress so slim - that again, I often feel like an idiot for persevering. Shouldn't I just play something else, something less abusive?

Well, the crucial thing about both Glastonbury and Super Meat Boy is that I do keep coming back, regardless of the suffering. In fact, the suffering is an important part of the experience. And lo and behold, on Wednesday night I finally beat Dr Fetus… only to be confronted by the second half of the level, which immediately crushed my spirits. So it goes.

Last week I went out, got smashed, and ended up accidentally buying all of the Sonic the Hedgehog stuff SEGA plonked on sale for the little blue guy's 20th Anniversary. Yes, I even got the DX upgrade for Sonic Adventure - that's how bad it was.

Still, I've taken it as an opportunity to 100% all of the games. This week I started at the beginning, with Sonic the Hedgehog on the Mega Drive. Bosh. Done. Aced. Finito. 200G in the bag. Game is still brilliant, SEGA is still a twat for completing ruining the series, and anyone who thinks Mario is better is still wrong. See you next week when I'll repeat this sentiment entirely after playing through Sonic the Hedgehog 2.

It didn't take long for boredom to rear its ugly head with this one. Without some form of context, repeatedly shooting zombies in the face gets dull pretty quick. Sure, it's a score attack game, but you can't actually do anything with that score, like, oh I don't know, compare it with friends. What Capcom should have done, was release this as a XBLA/PSN title, with leaderboards and all that jazz, then people might have found an incentive to play it for more than an hour. I just really don't see the point in it as a 3DS title. Resident Evil: Revelations looks promising, though.

I mentioned this on the podcast the other day as a truly ace, if not completely rock-hard, horror game. Literate nerds out there will recognise the name of the game as a reference to the Harlan Ellison book. The book was developed into a point-and-click adventure by a now-defunct developer with the wonderfully ‘90s-sounding studio name The Dreamers Guild. It’s also one of the most depressing games you’ll ever play. Here’s the gist: International super-powers have constructed a series of computers to wage a global war too complex for humans oversee. Naturally it becomes sentient and starts torturing the last five people alive. But also there is a talking dog!

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Need for Speed Hot Pursuit takes up my Monday nights at the moment. A group of 5 or us jump on as have a blast. Last week we tried the Armed and Dangerous DLC and that turns out to be even more enjoyable. 2 racers vs 3 Cops on racer being the Most wanted who the cops have to bust and the other racer has to protect. Turns out I a dab hand had taking out coppers with the racer I'm protecting getting away most times. So many great moments.

Battlefield Bad Company 2 with the forum was a blast once I got back into the swing of things. Got my first two Destruction 2.0 kills but my flying needs some work (sorry draytone)

LA Noire I got from the brother in law on Sunday so was able to do one traffic case after doing the uniform stuff. Very good and looking forward to the other desks.

Been a week of more Black Ops multiplayer with my friends and Uncharted 2.
I love Uncharted 2 so I don't want to rush through it playing it at every spare minute because I won't appreciate it as much so I'm going to play it every few days. The controls are easy enough to pick up.

Ghostbusters on the 360 and started Mass Effect 1 again, but on insanity as a Vanguard. I didn't import my character over as I'm going to try and get some of the achievements for ME1, and then eventually start ME2 on insanity and finish it before ME3 arrives next year.

Been playing the Wii as well and been mixing with Brawl, Other M and Zelda: TP. I really like Other M and I think it has the best scenes on the Wii.

Still my catchup binge of Ghostbuster (such a FUN multiplayer component!!) and Farcry 2 exploration for diamond-holding briefcases across the African landscape.

But added to the mix shall be a return to the original Dead Rising - I was able to pick up a copy of the steelbook edition quite cheaply, and although I know it is not as fun as the sequel (Convicts again - ARRRRG!), would like to go back and mop up some of the missing achievements.

I finished the Borderlands main story for the 2nd time, then carried on with the DLC. Then thought I'd pop back to Fyrestone to work on some pistol levelling, walked out the front gate and fired at some Skags (after you complete Playthrough 2, everything scales to your level in the original Borderlands content, so Badass in Playthrough 1 is BadMutha in Playthrough 2 is Superbad thereafter).

I got my level 62 butt handed back to me on a plate in short order. Eventually the loot was worth it. Next week I'll be looting nothing but Crimson Lance chests in the hope of boosting my stats a little, then it's time for some payback.

Borderlands used to be my fallback game, the one to turn to when new releases dried up or there was nothing else worth playing. Now that I know how deep this lootfest goes it's going to have its hooks in me for a long long time. Can't believe there's still no official announcement regarding a sequel, just speculation.